Sometimes I wonder if people care about inner beauty and inner lives.
I wrestle so much with my outer sense of worth because I wrestle a lot with my interior sense of worth. I struggle so much with the idea of how important the inner lives of people are to the world and whether or not people really see it and value it as much as they say they do.
This isn't a demand for folks to give me compliments and affirm my worth but it's me trying to speak out against the part of me that wants to be cute, dispassionate, "dumbed-down" and likeable all the time. I want to speak up, not only for me, but for those who struggle with wanting to be dreamy all the time, too.
I think outer beauty is important. I think it's important to affirm, because we're all created to reflect G-d's beauty, on the inside and the outside. I think we reflect Beauty itself when we are comfortable and delight in the shade of skin we live in, or we have fun with make up or none and paint on our toes and we dress up for special occasions like theatre performances and weddings or because we made pants that are the perfect shape and color for our body type. There's beautiful, eye-catching, soul-stirring stuff in our exterior lives. There really is.
But, sometimes, I find people hiding behind their exterior beauty. Constantly. As if it were a lifestyle. And that causes concern for me. I've been in situations where it's hard to meet people and make friends and be known because I find that there are men and women who focus so much of their life, so much of their money and their time on how attractive they can make themselves and make their lives seem. And so people will catch my attention on the outside, but I never get to know them and see the beauty and depth they boast on the inside.
I'm not particularly immune to this behavior though. I often buy into the idea that being a smart women who cares about the things I care about won't get me the things I want in life, to be loved, to be accepted, to be someone. I see all around me that following the same trends seems to get more attention and more people to "like" me and that addressing things that matter brings into the room a lot more silence than what sells, what is trendy, what is cool.
So, I struggle with wondering if my passion for life matters. If that's an important thing. I struggle with wondering if my hatred for warfare and violence is beautiful. I know it is beautiful. Most of the time. At least more than I did months and years before. I'm trying to learn to have conversations with people I meet about the things that make our hearts hurt instead of making conversations stay shallow for months and months. But, I have a hard time seeing that our grief, hope and and joy matters to the world. There are so many people who fight for real truth and real justice, who fight for Jesus' reign and Kingdom on earth, who clothe themselves in kindness and patience and beauty and love... But they go unnoticed because they're instagram feed might not be "cool" enough or nonexistent, they might not meet our nations impossible or oppressive standard of beauty, or they might not act enough like Zooey Deschenal's characters, Jess and Summer.
I, too, trick myself into thinking that letting people only into the exterior side of me gives me life and worth. And I find the temptation to "dumb myself down" or "be less sensitive" a constant in social contexts, especially around people my age. But, I don't want my outside self to be the only self I present to others. I want to bond with others and have fun and go to concerts and pet goats, but I don't want people to think that they are in love with me or inspired by me because of things that sell or things they see on the exterior that look pretty or because I have blue hair. I want people to find beauty in the real me, in all my passionate rants about how racism sucks and my struggle to grow in love with myself, just as I hope to find courage and strength and purpose in the real, full life of someone else. I find the most support for the real me to be with my older friends, the ones who are 33 and 54, who are growing to love the skin they were meant to be and live and love and serve in, the folks who think it's bold that I have blue hair, but know that I'm so much more than my decision to have a little color added in.
They like me because I'm so much more. I am beautiful and inspiring to them, inside and out. And I know this because these women tell me day in and day out what is beautiful about my soul and my desires and not just what is beautiful about my body or my tastes. They affirm both my exterior and internal lives. They don't elevate one above the other.
So, this is me, trying to be a little bolder and speaking up, hoping to believe more and more each day that there is real beauty in the Hope that I have, and that it matters, and it matters so much, too, when I see it illuminating in the heart of others.
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